First Quarto, we have to-day what is really a corrupt and difficult text. Luckily, Shakespeare's share in this play is small. The title-pages of the quartos of Shakespeare bear convincing testimony, not only to the genuineness of his plays, but also to his rise in reputation. Only six of his plays were printed in quartos not bearing his name. Of these, two--_Romeo and Juliet_ and _Henry V_--began with pirated editions not bearing the author's name. Three--_Richard II, Richard III, I Henry IV_--were all followed by quartos with the poet's name upon them. The sixth play, _Titus Andronicus_, was one of his earliest works, and its authorship is even now not absolutely certain. Since the name of a popular dramatist on the {120} title-page was a distinct source of revenue to the publisher after 1598, it was to be expected that anonymous plays should be ascribed in some cases to William Shakespeare by an unscrupulous or a misinformed printer. Here arose the Shakespeare 'apocrypha,' which is discussed in a following chapter. A new problem in the history of Shakespearean quartos has been presented since 1903 by a study of the quartos of 1619. Briefly summarized, the theory which is best defended at the present time is, that in that year Thomas Pavier and William Jaggard, two printers of London, decided at first to get up a collected quarto edition of Shakespeare's plays, but on giving up this idea, they issued nine plays in a uniform size and on paper bearing identical watermarks, which were either at that time or later bound up together as a collected set of Shakespeare's plays in a single volume.[2] These plays are the _Whole Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of Lancaster and York_, "printed for T. P."; _A Yorkshire Tragedie_, "printed for T. P., 1619"; _Pericles_, "printed for T. P. 1619"; _Merry Wives_, "printed for Arthur Johnson, 1619"; _Sir John Oldcastle_, "printed for T. P., 1600"; _Henry V_, "printed for T. P., 1608"; _Merchant of Venice_, "printed by J. Roberts, 1600"; _King Lear_, "printed for Nathaniel Butter, 1608"; _Midsummer Night's Dream_, "printed for Thomas Fisher, 1600." Of these plays, the _Whole Contention_, the _Yorkshire {121} Tragedie_, and _Sir John Oldcastle_ are spurious, but had been attributed to Shakespeare in earlier quartos. The five plays dated 1600 or 1608 in each case duplicated a quarto actually printed in the year claimed by the Pavier reprint; so that this earlier dating was an attempt to deceive the public into believing they were purchasing the original editions.